Review: Bounce Off

There are those who consider competitively bouncing ping pong balls into a plastic frame to try and create a random pattern is the height of entertainment.

And then there are people with no souls.

Bounce Off is a new game from Mattel and it’s a perfect option for family get-togethers – simple enough for kids to play alongside the grown-ups, but compelling (and competitive) enough that adults will have plenty of fun, too. Think beer pong – without the beer.

The game consists of a board – a grid with short poles pointing upwards – and 16 ping pong balls, eight yellow, eight blue.

There are nine challenge cards, split into easy and hard, which show balls on the game grid, in various patterns. To start the game, one player selects a challenge card and shares it with all players.

There are some extra rules written right on the box that state players should begin by trash talking their opponents, and finish up by gloating – because apparently “winning this game makes you the better person”.

Now, there’s a sentiment we could really get behind.

To play the game, each player must bounce their ping pong ball onto the table and have it land on the board – continuing to bounce balls until someone recreates the pattern on the challenge card. The person who recreated the pattern ‘wins’ the card – and the first player to win three cards wins the game.

It’s pretty fast, and a lot of fun – there’s a lot of entertainment in accidentally or deliberately sabotaging other players’ attempts to create patterns.

I love that you can also vary the game. There are only 9 challenge cards, but you can easily create your own cards, and the game can be played by taking turns to bounce a ball, or having everyone throw at the same time – chaos! We even found entire YouTube videos devoted to learning trick shots for this game.

A couple of things worth noting – you DO need a fairly big table if four players are going to join in, and with kids playing it’s likely you’ll spend a lot of time hunting for ping pong balls that go flying off the table. But I guess the advantage of the ping pong ball style balls is that they can be replaced easily enough.

At £16.99 this is a brilliant game for family get-togethers and is great fun – here’s our video review so you can see Bounce Off in action.

Disclosure: We were provided with a free sample of Bounce Off for the purposes of this review.

Sally is a full-time blogger and founder of the Tots100, Trips100, Foodies100 and HIBS100 communities, along with the MAD Blog Awards. She spends a bit too much time on the Internet. She’s also a very happy Mum to Flea, the world’s coolest ten year old.